


& weave me a rainbow of dreams asleep.

by Bulletprccf



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, M/M, and yet it isn't., this is the color-vision soulmate au.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 16:24:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20910611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bulletprccf/pseuds/Bulletprccf
Summary: You are born with the knowledge of black and white.  Not grey -- simply different pieces of those two absolutes.  As you grow older, others impart their wisdom -- their color -- to you.This is the same story you know, woven from the pieces you already have, and from the pieces you don’t.  This is not a rewrite; this not a remake.  This is simply what you cannot possibly see, from your black and white television screen.This is the story of why I am red.





	& weave me a rainbow of dreams asleep.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Valentined](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valentined/gifts).

_ There’s a reason we don’t see the world in black and white. _ \-- Celerie Kemble

\--- ☥ ---

With every birth there is a sunrise of possibility; a new dawn births hope for every sentient being, every piece of Lifestream given infinite golden potential. The paths of our lives determine whether or not this chance is wasted or not: you decide whether your soul is painted in blinding and brilliant color or remains entombed in deep, clear-cut monochrome.

This is the same story you know, woven from the pieces you already have, and from the pieces you don’t. This is not a rewrite; this not a remake. This is simply what you cannot possibly see, from your black and white television screen.  
  
This is the story of why I am red.

\--- ☥ ---

The first color I saw was pink.

I didn’t understand it at the time, but as I grew older, my father explained it to me, little by little. It is a type of collection, a game of sorts that the goddess wishes us to play with each other, for her creations to spiral upward, breaking the confines of their canvases.

Mother was always sick, for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t a lethal sickness, but I don’t think it was common enough to even have a name yet. I recall that sometimes she would eat something and contract horrible stomach pains, leading her to violent dizzy spells and causing her to black out for moments at a time. I remember she hit her head once and I was so terrified of the liquid that poured from her -- it was not clear, like water, but I could not see what color it was. It remained an ever-shifting shatter of black and white, like pieces of a glass window spilling from her head.

As most young children do, I screamed for my father.

Mother tried to hush me, but those spells made it incredibly difficult for her to speak. Thankfully, my father had not yet left for the university, and he came running. With ease he picked up my mother and took her to bed, checking her temperature and sending me to fetch a moist cloth and a change of clothes for her. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I distinctly remember the snippet of conversation I heard from them, floating down the hall to me:

“I’m so sorry, dear. I can’t imagine why you stay with me. This is pretty gross, ain’t it?”

“Now, now, Loolah, we’ve been over this. I’m a doctor, and you’re my beautiful wife. Just because you’re sick doesn’t mean I think any less of you.”

“But...sure you coulda found a different girl, one whose body ain’t doin’ stuff like this.”

“That girl wouldn’t be the miraculous little songbird from the speakeasy, though. That, darling, was you.”

At the touch of my father’s unique nickname for my mother, something wild and fantastical happened. Mother’s dress, in my very hands, starting changing. I let out a frightened little yelp, and I’m fairly certain I dropped the cursed thing. My father, hearing my cry and being a kind and caring man in any capacity, came to check on me.

“Now, Vincent. Why are you staring at that dress like it’ll bite you, son?”

“F-Father, it -- it changed!”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I -- I don’t know, sir. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s -- it’s different than everything else. Everything else is either the light or the dark, but this -- this isn’t.”

Revelation settled in my father’s eyes, and he scooped up not only the dress, but my young four-year-old self into his arms. He carried me back into my parents’ room and announced to Mother with a proud voice:

“Loolah, Vincent’s seen his first color!”

Now, let me tell you, it sounds juvenile and silly to be frightened of a color, but at that word I was ever more scared. I’d never seen a color, nor did I even know what one was. The part of the story that you cannot see is that everyone in this world does not see color. We see either black or white when we are born, nothing else. No shades of gray, no inklings of depth besides two tones, like you might see in a manga.

Later on that night, my father sat at Mother’s side and took me on his knee, decidedly my favorite place at the time.

“Can you see the difference that’s on your mother’s dress?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Right, then. Can you see it anywhere else?”

“It...It’s on the stuffed rabbit you bought her at the fair we went to last week.”

At that, my mother broke into a gentle smile and patted the rabbit’s head. She nodded to my father. “You’re seein’ what’s called a color, Cattie. They’re everywhere in the world.”

“But...I can only see the dress call -- color.”

“People will teach you how to feel different things, and every time you learn somethin’ new, you’ll see a new color.”

“Feel them? What do you mean?”

“Well...clearly, Father made you feel somethin’ you hadn’t before. Or maybe you just understood it a bit better. It’s hard to say, because exactly what causes it changes from person to person.”

“I...don’t really get it, ma’am.”

“I’m no good at explainin’ it, honey. I’m sorry.”

At this I remember wiggling out of my father’s lap and snuggling next to Mother, because I didn’t quite know what to say.

“It’s like this, son,” my father began. “Somehow something just taught you an idea of ‘kindness.’ That’s what pink represents.”

“Pink, sir? What’s pink?”

“Pink is the color of my dress, Cattie,” Mother said, smoothing her hand over her dress. “That’s its name, like your name is Vincent.”

I likely made some odd gesture of understanding, probably tilting my head to the side. It’s difficult to recall at this point. I remember only bits and pieces. I vaguely remember her giving her pink rabbit to me, as a celebration of sorts that I could begin to see the colors. From that point forward, I would excitedly point out when things were pink, and Mother gave me pink pyjamas to wear at home.

\--- ☥ ---

As I grew older, I gained a better understanding of what the different colors mean. It is difficult to convey to you, because, as Mother put it, it requires a specific occurrence in your own life. You can compare it to someone close to you leaving a lasting impression on you, be it a good or a bad impression. The events that cause you to see color may also be good or bad.

Mother’s sickness was what taught me beige.

Beige is the color of perseverance, a continuing despite the odds. Being what it is, most of the time it reveals itself to those who have been through some sort of hardship in their lives, or who have a family member who does.

It is a strange thing to speak about, because I do not entirely remember when I realized I could see it. I know it had to do with Mother, for even now I admire how determined she was to not let her illness overtake her. While Father received funding from the university to research illnesses and search for cures, Mother wanted to help provide for us in the only way she thought she could: she had a talented voice, and sang at least once a week at a quiet club on campus. I was never allowed in the club, but I was told it was not the speakeasy my father met her in.

I don’t actually know anything about the speakeasy, nor why speakeasies were necessary.

I do know that watching Mother plunge forward through life despite her worsening condition caused me to understand this overarching concept of “perseverance.”

\--- ☥ ---

Things changed after the Shin-Ra Manufacturing Company discovered mako energy. I’m not certain who discovered or created the process for it, but I was around ten when our lives changed drastically. The city became more brightly lit, and people started staying out later. Teenagers started hanging around the bad parts of town, and the bad parts of town became worse. I was no longer allowed to go out after dark, even though the light stretched further. Strange men would ask Mother questions when we’d go somewhere. The university was becoming a less and less safe place to live.

Father had been approached by the Shin-Ra Manufacturing Company about using mako in his research. He was delighted with the prospect, and I remember vaguely he picked up Mother and spun her in a circle, thrilled that he could finally perhaps find a cure -- or a least a clue -- to her mysterious illness.

However...that didn’t happen. I’m sure you’ve heard where my father’s research was most prevalent. It’s strange, how one event alters the course of our entire lives.

Mother’s death changed him.

Mother’s death changed me.

I saw it happen. To my shame, I don’t remember it clearly. It was such a long time ago.

Mother was coming back from her weekly performance at the club. The club had gained patrons rapidly after mako energy became widespread, but so did her admirers. Mother had always been very beautiful, to my untrained and unseeing eyes. Three young men approached her on the street and spoke to her. I didn’t hear what they said, but I can imagine. It ended in her blasting one of them with an explosion of ice, I presume from a materia, but then…

They slammed her into the wall with an excessive amount of force.

The only reason they didn’t do anything worse as she died was because I ran toward them, yelling.

“Cattie...no, you’re about a full Cat now. Young man’s 15 in five days. Play the harpsichord for me then...won’t...you…?”

Her barette swam into focus in my eyes, a color I later learned to be called turquoise -- the color of sadness.

That was the beginning of the women I failed to save.

\--- ☥ ---

A man named Gast Faremis, a professor at the university my father did research for, invited him to be a part of a special project at Shin-Ra. He was to become part of a team that researched the Cetra and their “Promised Land,” full of mako energy. Gast wasn’t yet the head of the science division at Shin-Ra, but he was well-liked by all due to his generally easygoing and pleasant demeanor.

A part of me thinks that he invited Father to this project to get him away from Midgar, from the house that was then emptier than before.

The research moved us to Icicle Inn. I remember liking it there. It was always a tourist location, from what I recall, and many interesting people flowed through the little town, including a young girl from Wutai who got incredibly lost from her entourage but had the most beautiful kimono of pink and turquoise. She bore a strong resemblance to Yuffie, now that I think about it.

Father also gave me the rest of my schooling there. I have a basic education, taught mainly by Mother when we lived in Midgar. Father finished what I needed to know, and also answered whatever questions I’d ask about his research. I learned how to use materia, and we would have small experiments with it in the snow to test the effectiveness of it all.

I think our findings wound up in the SOLDIER program somewhere, but I can’t really say.

We had a quiet cottage, with four rooms. There was a basic living area, a bathroom, a sleeping area, and a large research room, where Father examined tablets and papers -- a great many papers. I don’t recall what was on those papers except various gibberish about the “Promised Land,” despite my father setting me up to type them up onto a computer.

But he didn’t mention using mako to cure illnesses. In fact, he never talked about illnesses again.

But he was kind. Father was never angry, though at times he cried quietly when he thought I was asleep. I don’t have a single bad memory of my father, and we grew very close during our time in that snowy place.

One morning I exclaimed with surprise that I could see  _ color _ in the shadows of the snow.

By this point, Father had meticulously explained to me how the colors worked and what they all represented, in his quiet and humble way. He always thought the colors to be a type of miracle, a gift from the goddess who gave us this planet.

Bless him, though -- he was always poor at describing individual colors.

“What color do you think it is, Vincent?”

“Hm...I’m not really sure, Father. It’s...close to turquoise, though. I think.”

“Ah. That’ll be blue, then. But it escapes me how you could see  _ that _ , out here in this frozen mountain of nothing.”

Humble. I’ll never forget. He never took credit for things, even when he should have.

“It must be because of you, Father. Blue is the color of sincerity, and I can only watch you here. I can think of no other person, real or fictional, who’s more sincere than you.”

A trick of the new blue light, perhaps, but I think my father’s eyes were just the least bit shiny.

\--- ☥ ---

You might be wondering how Mother’s death changed  _ me _ .

Mine is the path of vengeance.

There are teachings that prohibit you from doing ill deeds on this planet, because the goddess will remove the color from your eyes. However, to a hurt and simmering teenager, such warnings fall on deaf ears.

The reason I told my father for why I wanted to become a Turk was only part of the truth.

“You want to what?”

“I want to come with you during your research. You’ve always enjoyed helping people, and this is going to help people someday, right? But Shin-Ra doesn’t have  _ strong _ ties everywhere, and you might need protecting. You can’t hammer all your research into my skull, but if I become a Turk I can request that I’m your bodyguard. Plus, we already know each other. Workplace chemistry, and all that.”

“Hmm…”

I remember being silent,  _ hopeful _ .

“Well, I don’t see why not.”

I let out a whoop.

“Hey, now! We’re inside!” my father laughed. “Go outside if you need to be causing all that racket.”

“Don’t worry, Father; I’m a respectable man of eighteen now. I can be quiet.”

“Good, because if I hear you’re making a fool of yourself I won’t invite you back for holidays.”

I remember we had a light chuckle over that.

“Still…” he said. “It’ll be a few years of training before you’ll be a solo act. And you might have to kill some monsters along the way.”

Father...was not fully aware of everything the Turks did. Do.

“We’ve hunted animals out here before. I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t doubt you will be. You’ve got the same determination in you as your mother.”

Mother...yes. That’s the other reason I became a Turk.

If I had access to Shin-Ra’s extensive surveillance system, I could find the bastards that murdered her.

I could kill them.

I did kill them.

But I never told Father any of that. I didn’t want to disappoint him.

The day Veld came to get me from Icicle Inn was uncharacteristically sunny, almost blinding me with the light reflected off the snow underfoot, to the point where I actually did run into Veld himself because I couldn’t see him for the light.

“Easy there, probie. Let’s not start training just yet.”

“Sorry, sir. It’s this godforsaken sunlight. It’s not usual here.”

Veld chuckled. “What colors can you see?”

“Pink, beige, turquoise, and blue, sir.”

“Well then, it’s a damn good thing your uniform is blue, then.”

Father and Veld talked for a while, and I changed into my new suit. I liked how it looked on me. It was clean. When I finished changing, Father rose from his seat at our small table and clapped me on the shoulder indecisively, then crushed me to his chest, much to my embarrassment. Veld simply laughed, and now I guess it’s likely because nothing ever really fazed that man.

Father stood at the door to beckon us on, and when I turned to leave, I think I saw pride in his colorless eyes.


End file.
